A running journal of days that actually worked - the ones where health habits stuck, family time hit different, or I remembered what it feels like to be fully alive. Not every day needs to be Instagram-worthy, but some days deserve a bookmark. This is that bookmark collection.
The Chronicles
2025-10-04
The Setup: First real entry! A Saturday that felt like it had 48 hours in it, in the best way.
How It Went:
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4:45am - Up and at ‘em. My 5am Igor showing up strong. The world is quiet, my brain is sharp.
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4:45-6am - Writing session. This is when the good stuff happens - before the world wakes up and starts demanding things.
- Updated Alfred workflows for OmniFocus automation support
- Fixed up nlp commit.py handlers to be faster
- Because apparently 5am Igor loves optimizing task management
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6-7:45am - Hansel came over to work on his podcast. Social connection happening naturally, not as something I had to schedule.
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8am - Drove to the gym. The transition from creation mode to physical mode.
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8-10am - Two-hour gym session. The kind where you leave feeling like you earned your body.
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10am-1pm - Joe Guppy’s comedy writing class. Jury’s still out on whether I’ll enjoy it, but I showed up. That counts.
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1pm - Professional Uber Driver™ mode activated. Drove Zach and his “super smart kids” crew to lunch at Golden Gardens. (See gap year post for the full philosophy on why this matters.)
- In the car they played this game: phone picks a random letter, guess a country that starts with it
- But wait - they had rules: No politically disputed countries, no historical country names, no regions
- Then someone suggested switching to second letter instead of first
- Group consensus: “Too hard” - they workshopped the difficulty curve like game designers
- Watching Zach hang out with his friends was awesome!
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Mid-lunch wait - The kids were goofing around, so I had unexpected time. Meditated at Golden Gardens instead of doom-scrolling. Turned dead time into mindful time.
- Thankfully I have my meditation bench in the car (along with everything else)
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Still waiting - Recorded a Fortune Cookie video. Found the gap in the schedule and used it. Already in the right headspace from meditating.
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3:30pm - Got home. The 15-minute drive was worth it - caught Zach laughing with his friends, which is its own kind of treasure.
- 3:30-6pm - Uploaded Fortune Cookie, made many blog updates (including this very post - meta!).
- Uncategorized - Very good eating
- Odd things about yesterday
- First run in like 3 years. (2 min on, 3 min walk) × 5. Gotta start slow to avoid injury.
- Decided to start a reverse bucket list and get rid of my juggling torches. Time to practice wanting less.
2018-11-06
A perfect day.
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5am - Woke up.
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5:30am - Hit the gym.
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7:30am - Walked Zach to school, then came back to give Amelia a hug.
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Morning commute - Biked to the subway.
- Did a magic trick for a family on the subway who loved it
- Biked up the main drag of downtown
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8:15am - Got to work and started the day.
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Work day:
- Worked with HR to establish a common bar for the leadership team to assess all employees
- Found and cleared a bottleneck for my most important Holiday Project
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5pm - Got home.
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7pm - Swimming with the family.
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Post-swim - Took Zach and Amelia to Beth’s for milkshakes because Zach did 14 laps at the pool.